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Thu,Jun 26th 2008 @ 12:16 pm EDTbyRoy Beck

ICE Chief Julie Myers goes before a congressional panel Wednesday to answer charges such as that she is allowing "immigrants in detention (to) languish without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill," as the New York Times stated in an editorial today (June 3).

When I talked with her in the afternoon, she was still fuming in consternation at what looks to be a coordinated onslaught by the nation's most prestigious media and the nation's immigration lawyers to shut down much of the system of detaining illegal aliens after they are arrested to ensure that they show up for deportation hearings.

I will admit to you that when the Big Media unveiled their investigative series on health care in detention centers last months, I asked my NumbersUSA staff to look into our taking a public stand to decry the abuse that was described.

NumbersUSA's position has always been that illegal aliens should be treated humanely as they are detected, detained and deported. I believe strongly that an advanced civilization goes to great lengths to ensure the physical safety of those it incarcerates. When individuals' freedoms are taken away through jailing, the state must take on every responsibility to ensure that they are not harmed due to their own lack of individual freedom to defend themselves.

My position has been that if there is a problem with detention health care, it should be fixed, but that any such problem should not be used in any way to hamper efforts to remove and drive illegal aliens from this country.

I will be interested to see if any of the Congress Members trip up Chief Myers. Under my stream of questions today, she certainly made a strong case that most of the charges of bad health treatment are false or misleading, and that the legitimate cases that have been raised were in the past before ICE instituted new procedures last year and early this year. (I'll give you examples below.)

Every Effort To Stop Enforcement Lest The Public See It Really Is Possible To Stop Illegal Immigration

But first, I need to note that Chief Myers is too polite -- and too politically astute -- to say what is really going on with this hearing and all these news stories.

That is, the sudden spotlight on health care for detained illegal aliens has almost nothing to do with health and almost everything to do with the open-borders crowd desperately attempting to slow down the accelerating enforcement across the nation as unleashed by Myers and her enthusiastic ICE team.

The last thing the open-borders crowd wants is for the public to see that real enforcement is possible. That it causes a lot of other illegal aliens to decide to pack up. That American workers are available to fill the jobs vacated by the arrested and fleeing illegal workers.

Myers and her ICE team in the past year are proving that illegal immigration is not inevitable and can be controlled.

No Suicide in 15 Months

The Washington Post did a huge multi-day investigative series last month detailing what it said were examples of incredibly bad health care for illegal aliens who are put into federal detention centers. The New York Times and CBS's 60 Minutes quickly followed suit, followed by a number of other media across the country.

One of the themes was that the trauma of being arrested and detained for

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5 Comments

It's pretty obvious that are government representatives aren't going to provide the Legal U.S. Tax Paying Citizen with any kind of relief of this undue burden of illegal immigrants. Maybe as Legal U.S. Tax Paying Citizens we ourselves should find a way to come together and relieve ourselves of this undue burden. Senators Stabenow and Levin & Congressman Dingle here in Michigan have no plans on backing the SAVE Act or any other bill that would resist aid of any sort to illegals aliens let alone deportation. It seems we ourselves as U.S. Citizens will need to have this problem taking care of at the highest level of government. The highest level of government being that of "U.S. Citizen"!
How would the Founders of America handle this problem?

Our founders were common men with a handle on reality. they shaped the nation with foresight and honor. Very unlike the crap that we had up in Washington the last 60 years. There is no honor among thieves.

I don't understand what our Senate and House don't understand about the word ILLEGAL! If our Government would enforce our laws restricting work by illegals they wouldn't be here. I don't care if they are Mexican, Guatamalen or Irish! If they are here ILLEGALLY than they are not ENTITLED to amything.... including health care and particularly dental work, which I understand they also get when needed. An ill child is a different story. There should be no more anchor babies either. If something doesn't change we will not recognize this country in ten years. And we certainly will not be a world leader. We could change our name to The Dysfunctional States of America..........

The working class citizen of this nation already carry the burden of to many free government programs already. Need to deport these illegals and put these welfare recipients to work. After all they are getting a check anyway.
It is pretty sad when our political elite mandate laws to accommodate the illegals because they will lose their votes. Hey this is America not Mexico. If you want a vote go home and vote because I don't care what your opinion is we have enough of that already without their input!
Even better than that it should be if you don't pay taxes you don't get a vote seeing how you haven't contributed we don't need your freebee policy either.

NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation provides a civil forum for Americans of all political and ethnic backgrounds to focus on a single issue, the numerical level of U.S. immigration. We educate opinion leaders, policymakers and the public on immigration legislation, policies and their consequences. We favor reductions in immigration numbers toward traditional levels that would allow present and future generations of Americans to enjoy a stabilizing U.S. population and a high degree of individual liberty, mobility, environmental quality, worker fairness and fiscal responsibility.

Those who need to refer to NumbersUSA with a short, descriptive modifier should call it an “immigration-reduction organization.”